I really love Poe, but this is just too damn dry.
Perhaps this much dry detail about a murder may have been intriguing and curiously morbid in a society less permeated with all sorts of depictions of bloody viscera, but for us modern folks steeped in true crime fiction, slasher-horror, and everything in between, there's a distinct lack of humanity and emotion in this story to attach ourselves to.
Poe's knowledge of the science of violence is not trivial considering the contemporary era in which he lived (where 'miasma' was the hot infection theory, and actual germ theory was still just a budding, abstract idea), and it serves him well in much of his other work, but you can see why the storytelling polish present in Conan Doyle's later Holmes stories were a necessary, welcome evolution to the detective-mystery fiction of Poe's Dupin. I wasn't a huge fan of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, but it's still superior to The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.
I assume this isn't skippable if you want to read the (apparently) far superior The Purloined Letter (I haven't read it yet!), otherwise I'd be comfortable urging Poe fans ignore this entry entirely and jump right on to the final—and perhaps most famous—Dupin episode.
Poe's knowledge of the science of violence is not trivial considering the contemporary era in which he lived (where 'miasma' was the hot infection theory, and actual germ theory was still just a budding, abstract idea), and it serves him well in much of his other work, but you can see why the storytelling polish present in Conan Doyle's later Holmes stories were a necessary, welcome evolution to the detective-mystery fiction of Poe's Dupin. I wasn't a huge fan of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, but it's still superior to The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.
I assume this isn't skippable if you want to read the (apparently) far superior The Purloined Letter (I haven't read it yet!), otherwise I'd be comfortable urging Poe fans ignore this entry entirely and jump right on to the final—and perhaps most famous—Dupin episode.
⭐
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